Strictures on Nullification

by Alexander Hill Everett

In other times, when other doctrines were fashionable in South Carolina, we were told by one of her distinguished statesmen of a very different radical error, which was lurking at the bottom of a doctrine which he then thought it his duty to oppose. 'The States, as political bodies,'—said Mr. McDuffie in his well-known pamphlet, The Trio, published about ten years ago,—'the States, as political bodies, have no original inherent rights. That they have such rights, is a false, dangerous and anti-republican assumption, which lurks at the bottom of all the reasoning in favor of State rights.'—Is there not room to apprehend that the error, which really lurks at the bottom in both these cases, is not precisely the one alluded to by either of these distinguished statesmen, but another which was also signalised by Mr. McDuffie on the same occasion and in the same pamphlet? 'Ambitious men of inferior talents, finding that they have no hope to be distinguished in the councils of the national Government, naturally wish to increase the power and consequence of the State Governments, the theatres in which they expect to acquire distinction. It is not, therefore, a regard for the rights of the people, and a real apprehension that those rights are in danger, that have caused so much to be said on the subject of prostrate State sovereignties and consolidated empire. It is the ambition of that class of politicians who expect to figure only in the State Councils, and of those States who are too proud to acknowledge any superior.'

This quotation was too provokingly apposite to be omitted; but we frankly own that the question preceding it must, in reference to the present case, be answered in the negative. The leading nullifiers, though sufficiently ambitious, are not men 'of inferior talents, who can have no hope of distinguishing themselves in the councils of the national Government.' They possess talents of a high order, and had already reached the most elevated stations in the National Government, before their judgments, previously sound and acute, had given way to the strange delusion which has now got possession of them. It is therefore necessary to look for the motives of their present proceedings in other quarters. Perhaps we may find them pretty satisfactorily accounted for, in the following passage of the same publication by Mr. McDuffie. 'He must have read the lessons of history to little purpose, who does not perceive that the people of particular States are liable to fall occasionally into a dangerous and morbid excitement upon particular subjects; and that, under this excitement, they will impel their rulers into the adoption of measures in their tendency destructive to the Union.'

But without undertaking to scrutinize the motives of the leading statesmen of South Carolina, we repeat that none of them have yet condescended to inform us, how they reconcile their admissions as to the authority of the General Government in ordinary cases, and that of the United States under the amending clause, with their doctrine of 'unimpaired sovereignty.' Mr. Calhoun, in the document before us, appears to be aware of the difficulty, but does not meet it in the full and frank manner which we had a right to expect from a man of his character. He takes refuge in vague and indefinite forms of language. 'Previous to the adoption of the present Constitution,' says he, 'no power could be exercised over any State, by any other or all of the States, without its own consent.' In other words, the States were then independent of each other, and, in the common phrase, sovereign. How are they now?—'The present Constitution,' continues Mr. Calhoun, 'has made in this particular a most important modification in their condition. I allude to the provision which gives validity to amendments of the Constitution, when ratified by three-fourths of the States, a provision which has not attracted as much attention as its importance deserves.'[A] It appears, then, that although the sovereignty of the States is unimpaired, their condition in this particular has undergone a most important modification. Now the long word modification, though it be, like Bardolph's accommodated, 'a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good command,' means, with all its six syllables, neither more nor less than the old-fashioned English monosyllable change.—Modification, says Johnson, is the act of modifying; and to modify is to change. It seems, then, that the condition of the States has undergone in this particular a most important change. It is no longer what it was. But they were before independent: of course they are now not independent. Such appears to be the plain English of the vague term modification.

But to what extent has this modification been carried? Before the adoption of the Constitution no power could be exercised over a State without its own consent. Now, by the admission of Mr. Calhoun, the United States can exercise unlimited power over a State without its own consent. This is indeed a most important modification of the sovereignty of the State. Such, however, is the virtue of this valuable word, that it prevents all the effect that would otherwise ensue to the sovereignty of the State from the change signified by it. 'To understand correctly the nature of this concession, (the modification is after all a concession,) we must not confound it with the power conferred upon the General Government, and to be exercised by it as the joint agent of the States. They are essentially different. The former is in fact but a modification of the original sovereign power, residing in the people of the several States.' It seems, then, that this most important modification is in fact a modification. 'Accommodated is when a man is, as they say, accommodated, or when a man is being—whereby he may be thought to be accommodated.' 'But,' continues the Vice-President, 'the original sovereign power residing in the people of the several States, though modified, is not delegated. It still resides in the States, and is still to be exercised by them, and not by the Government.' He had just told us, that the condition of the several States had undergone in this particular a most important modification, by the concession of power made in the provision for amending the Constitution:—now there is no delegation,—no concession,—the sovereignty is modified, but the condition of the State remains as it was before. Did the Vice-President himself understand exactly what he meant to say?

'It still resides in the States, and is to be exercised by them, and not by the Government.' How is this?—Before the adoption of the Constitution, the whole political power of each State resided in the State: now, a large portion of it has been transferred, by the provision for amending the Constitution, to the United States. How then can it be said, that the whole still resides in the State? Of what consequence is it whether the power has been conceded to the General Government, or to the United States? Provided it be gone from the State, it is obvious that the sovereignty of the State is equally impaired, whether it now belongs to one or the other. The point which Mr. Calhoun wishes to make out is, that each State now possesses all the political power which it possessed before the adoption of the Constitution. It is admitted that a large concession has been made. But, says Mr. Calhoun, the power thus granted has been granted to the United States, and not to the General Government,—therefore, it still remains in the possession of the granting State! The owner of a tract of land conveys away a part of it for a valuable consideration; but the sale being made to B. and not to C., it follows, says Mr. Calhoun, that the whole remains in possession of A.

If arguments like these were found in a document purporting to be a mere specimen of forensic ingenuity, or in the speech of a legal advocate who might be supposed to defend his client, whether he thought his case a good one or not, we should conclude, at once, that the person employing them had, from a consciousness of the weakness of his cause, resorted expressly to ambiguous language, and loose sophistical reasoning. But the document before us is of a very different character and consequence. The subject which it treats is a great practical question. The author,—no less a person than the Vice-President of the United States,—has placed himself at the head of an enterprise, which, according to the degree of purity and singleness of heart with which he engages in it, must be regarded as in him the noblest exercise of patriotism, or the highest offence known to the law. Such is the individual, whom we find under such circumstances resorting for his justification to a sort of language, which, in ordinary cases, would be received as the obvious resource and undoubted evidence of insincerity. We shrink from characterizing such a course in the way which appears most natural, and gladly avail ourselves of the pointed and fearless denunciation of Mr. McDuffie.

'A man, who will contend that our Government is a confederacy of independent States, whose independent sovereignty was never in any degree renounced, and that it may be controlled or annulled at the will of the several independent States or sovereignties, can scarcely be regarded as belonging to the present generation. The several independent States control the General Government! this is anarchy itself.'

It is unnecessary, we trust, to pursue this discussion any farther. The nullifiers, we repeat, scarcely attempt to reconcile their full and express admissions, that the Constitution is a social compact, by which the States have formed themselves into a body politic under a common Government, which body politic possesses, under the amending clause, an unlimited power over the political condition of its members, with the assertion, openly and obviously inconsistent with these admissions, that each State still retains its independence and sovereignty entire and unimpaired. Their whole argument, such as it is, consists in the eternal repetition of two ideas. The States were independent at the time when they made the Constitution,—therefore they are independent now. A. and B. were single persons at the time when they entered into a contract of marriage, therefore they are single still. The precise and avowed object of the contract, in both cases, is to put an end to the relation which the parties previously held towards each other, and to substitute for it another and a different one. Yet it is sagely concluded, that because they held towards each other this relation, which it was intended to terminate, before, they must of necessity hold it afterwards; and this is the conclusion which the Vice-President and his followers declare themselves determined to enforce upon the people of the United States, if necessary, at the cannon's mouth!

What then, it may be asked, is in fact the situation of the States under the Constitution? Are they mere corporations, like our cities and towns, deriving all their powers from the acts of the Government under which they are placed? Assuredly not. The States are the original parties to the social compact, and are recognised in it as entitled to exercise a certain portion of the legislative power. In the exercise of this power, they are, as we have already remarked, just as independent of the General Government, as the General Government is of them in the exercise of the powers with which it is invested by the same Constitution. But although the General Government has no authority over the State Governments, the United States, besides the control which they exercise through the General Government over the citizens of the States, also possess, under the amending clause of the Constitution, an almost unlimited control over the political situation of the States themselves. Under these circumstances, it is obvious, that the States, though holding, not by law, but by an original right recognised in the Constitution, the legislative power which they are entitled to exercise, have yet no pretensions to sovereignty or absolute political independence, and that, the only sovereign power, recognised in our institutions is that of the people or body politic of the United States.

In the quotations which we have made from the pamphlet of Mr. McDuffie, we have employed to a very moderate extent the argumentum ad hominem, which, as our readers are aware, might be carried without difficulty a great deal farther. There have probably been very few cases, in the history of this or any other country,—especially relating to matters of so much importance,—in which individuals have placed themselves before the public, in a position so diametrically opposite to that which they occupied but a short time before. Their inconsistency is equally glaring in reference to the nature of the evil of which they complain, and the means by which they propose to remedy it. But a few years ago, these very persons not only supported and professed to believe in the policy of protecting domestic industry, but actually originated the plan, and employed the whole weight of their talents and influence in carrying it through Congress. At the same time, they denounced the claim of a right in the States to annul the acts of the General Government, as anarchy itself. Now, the protecting policy is not only not advantageous but utterly ruinous to the country; and not only ruinous but unconstitutional, and not only unconstitutional but so plainly and palpably unconstitutional, as to justify a resort to the most desperate extremities to get rid of it. Now, the right of the States to annul at discretion the acts of the General Government is not only not anarchy itself, but is the simplest and most beautiful part of the whole machinery of our political institutions. It would be easy to collect from the writings and speeches of these gentlemen at the two periods alluded to, whole pages of passages, presenting, on the same authority, exactly the pro and con of every prominent point in the argument. This has in fact been done to a considerable extent by Mr. Carey, and if the subject were not a serious one, the contrast would be irresistibly amusing. Our limits will not permit us to enlarge upon this point, and the strength of the direct argument renders it unnecessary. In general, we are not disposed to insist too rigorously upon formal party consistency, and are willing to allow to political men a reasonable latitude in reconsidering their opinions, and adapting their abstract principles to the circumstances under which they are called to act. But in a case so very peculiar as this, where the party is so clearly bound to put himself in the right in the great court of public opinion, he certainly gives his opponents a fearful advantage when he enables them, on every leading point, to condemn him unequivocally and peremptorily out of his own mouth.